artificialities. We often went to the most distant parts of the globe
with him, and stayed weeks and months, and yet were gone only a fraction
of a second, as a rule. You could prove it by the clock. One day when
our people were in such awful distress because the witch commission were
afraid to proceed against the astrologer and Father Peter's household, or
against any, indeed, but the poor and the friendless, they lost patience
and took to witch-hunting on their own score, and began to chase a born
lady who was known to have the habit of curing people by devilish arts,
such as bathing them, washing them, and nourishing them instead of
bleeding them and purging them through the ministrations of a
barber-surgeon in the proper way. She came flying down, with the howling
and cursing mob after her, and tried to take refuge in houses, but the
doors were shut in her face. They chased her more than half an hour, we
following to see it, and at last she was exhausted and fell, and they
caught her. They dragged her to a tree and threw a rope over the limb,
and began to make a noose in it, some holding her, meantime, and she
crying and begging, and her young daughter looking on and weeping, but
afraid to say or do anything.

They hanged the lady, and I threw a stone at her, although in my heart I
was sorry for her; but all were throwing stones and each was watching his
neighbor, and if I had not done as the others did it would have been
noticed and spoken of. Satan burst out laughing.

All that were near by turned upon him, astonished and not pleased. It
was an ill time to laugh, for his free and scoffing ways and his
supernatural music had brought him under suspicion all over the town and
turned many privately against him. The big blacksmith called attention
to him now, raising his voice so that all should hear, and said: